A Lesson in Conflict Management
by ichthyosaurus
Summary: When it comes to resolving an argument with the neighbors, Ron's judgement and fatherly advice are questionable at best. postDH spoilers.


As far as parents went Ron was neither as strict, nor as indulgent as the worst of either spectrum were prone to be. He was quite proud at maintaining a good balance of fun and firmness, although truthfully it tended to nod towards the lenient. Hermione was the linchpin in the household's justice system. Despite occasional forays into fretfulness as a result of his mother's influence, Ron retained most of his father's affability.

Unfortunately that is all rather leading to the blunt point that Ron was as often a co-conspirator in his children's mischief as he was the voice of reason.

Hugo, recently a proud ten years old, had taken to playing at a neighboring playground with some other local children. Hermione was delighted and insisted on the importance of interaction with Muggles at an early age so as to foster tolerance and friendship. Ron just told him not to put anybody's hair on fire, or turn their ears blue. Hugo said he couldn't promise anything. It's _awfully_ hard to control magic without a wand.

Rose was away at school and Ron acutely felt her absence, was determined to enjoy this last year with Hugo before he too was lost to books and lessons. At the moment Hugo was at the playground and when he returned Ron had promised a game of Exploding Snap. So when he heard the porch door open and the boy's distinctive footsteps thudded inside, Ron dug out the deck and started to arrange the table.

"We ought to fireproof the books this time," mused Ron. He looked up expecting to see Hugo's impish grin. Instead the boy's face, as he rounded the corner into the room, was set in a frown. It was out of place on a face so accustomed to laughing. "What's wrong?" he asked in surprise.

Hugo didn't answer at first, sat down in a sullen way only ten-year-olds can manage. Ron let him sit and stew for a moment, knowing it was best to let him talk when he was ready. They sat like that for a minute and Ron was thinking about the Cannons' new Keeper—probably wouldn't be worth the outrageous contract—when Hugo spoke.

"Dad, I just _hate_ him."

Ron tore his thoughts away from what could have been. "What? Who do you hate?"

"Scott Jenkins."

He searched through his memory to find that particular name. Despite his best, well mediocre efforts he could never keep the neighbors straight. "Jenkins. They live in the yellow house."

"It's green." Hugo curled his lip in absolute disgust. "A _weird_ green."

"Why do you hate Scott? Your mother wouldn't like to hear that."

His son scowled. "It's not my fault. You couldn't not hate him. I tried to be nice to him, I did. But Dad—his dog's been _going on our yard!_"

"I—" Ron blinked. "What?"

"His dog, Dad! Can you believe that?" Hugo bounced up, hopping in indignation. "His dog! Our yard! A toilet! Really!" When a Weasley boy's fury mitigated fractured sentences, it was serious. Ron paused a moment and tried to decide which path to take with this. There wasn't any point as his son seemed to have made up his own mind, and bounded over to a bowl. "Where are those Ton-Tongues?" he demanded rummaging around.

Parental responsibility kicked in. "Oh no you don't."

Hugo whirled around, practically skipping angry. "I can't believe him! He won't do anything about it. I've tried to make him stop his dog, but he won't. They've got a yard too but it's not good enough for Carbonade, no no. Do we at least have Pepper Imps?"

Parental responsibility kicked out. "They named their dog Carbonade?"

"Yeah," Hugo spat venomously. "A dumb name for a dumb dog. It always barks at me too, it won't stop. I bet Scott would eat a Cockroach Cluster if I told him it was peanuts."

This sounded vaguely familiar to Ron. "Don't you think you're overreacting a little?" he said, mostly to subtly deflect Hugo from this line of thought.

Hugo puffed up. "Dad! You're kidding me! This is his dog we're talking about, on _our_ yard. Doing—stuff. He's got no right! The grass is starting to come up all splotchy."

"Excessive fertilizing?" Ron offered with a slight grin. Hugo's frown became more pronounced. He seemed absolutely flabbergasted that his father wasn't as enraged as the infraction of neighborhood etiquette rules warranted.

"Unbelievable. And Dad—he's always after me to play with him. Everywhere I go, Scott follows me and wants to play all my games. I tell him no because he won't stop his dog, but he keeps on anyway."

Exploding Snap didn't appear to be an option so Ron started to put away the deck before Crookshanks could get at it. On second thought, maybe he should just leave it out. He leaned against the table and stared at his son, struck by the boy's resemblance to himself. Truthfully it was sort of annoying about the dog. It was his lawn after all.

"Have you talked to his parents?" Ron asked.

Hugo shrugged. "No, but he says he's going to tell them I won't play with him. Tattle-tale."

"Hugo, it takes your mother or I a second to do a Banishing Spell. What's the problem?"

"That's right, you can." The boy sat down and mused a little. "You could probably Banish all the dung to his closet or something."

"Also not an option." Pause. "Well—no."

"Besides, Dad, it's the principle of the thing!" Hugo borrowed a phrase, Ron was sure, from Hermione. "Scott doesn't know we've got magic. He doesn't know you can Banish the stuff. He's just letting his dog go on our grass! And then he wants to _play_ with me! Can't you do anything?" he added desperately.

Ron raised helpless hands. "I can't, kid. I couldn't. It's not an acceptable use of magic against Muggles. Especially not against someone so young."

Hugo sagged, evidently having expected nothing less. "I don't know what to do."

"Just sit tight until it blows over," Ron advised.

* * *

It was an hour or so later. He was sweating and cursing at a garden gnome that was hiding under the porch. Normally he'd let the thing be, but his house didn't have the privacy the old Burrow did, and so any magical creatures had to be hidden from curious neighbor's eyes. It was hopping just out of reach, backed into a corner only a few inches or so from his fingers. Ron lunged, and it bit him. Nonetheless, he held on.

"Gotcha!" he said triumphantly. "Without magic even."

He wriggled back out from under the porch, dirty but victorious, with the gnome clutched in his hands. Ron clamped its mouth shut and headed back into the house, the thing struggling viciously in his hands.

"Mr. Weasley!"

Ron jumped and turned halfway to face a woman across the garden. The gnome seized an opportunity and sank a row of sharp, tiny teeth in the soft part of his hand. "Owwww!" he howled.

The woman stared but came forward. Ron hissed and spun around, dug his wand out, and tapped the wretched thing. "Immobilus!" he whispered, and the gnome froze in a horrible expression. He whirled back around, holding it behind his back, and came face to face with the woman who looked affronted that he'd turned his back to her.

"Mr. Weasley, I am Scott's mother," she said, regarding him haughtily as though it was only a dire circumstance that necessitated her to speak with him.

"Scott Junkens?" Ron said, still thrown off.

Scott's mother puffed up like a hen, offended. "Jenkins, Mr. Weasley!"

"Oh. Sorry."

"What is it that you've got behind your back?" she said suspiciously.

"Ah—" There was nothing for it, and Ron slowly drew it behind his back, a hideous gargoyle. Hopefully she would think it a commonplace Muggle ornament. "Garden gnome?"

Mrs. Jenkins stared at it, revolted. It _was_ an ugly thing, and didn't seem to positively influence her opinion of him. Her eyebrows disappeared under her frilly hat. It was plain she thought it a disgrace to any respectable garden and could only make a statement about the sort of people who'd put it up. Suddenly she forcibly reminded him of Harry's aunt, Petunia.

"_Well_, Mr. Weasley," she continued in a tone that suggested she was being very considerate by not addressing the trangression of lawn laws—for the moment— "I've come to see you about your son."

Ron felt a sudden dread. Hugo had gone with the Ton-Tongues, he just knew it. With foreboding he said, "Yes?"

"I must say, I am absolutely disappointed in young Hugo." But not surprised, said Mrs. Jenkins' expression, if he took after his father. "Your son is displaying very rude manners toward my Scotty. He came to me with complaints that Hugo refuses his company and deliberately excludes him from games. This is unnacceptable behavior, and I trust you'll speak to your son about it."

During this Ron's initial relief that Hugo hadn't breeched any Muggle relations laws was quickly replaced by annoyance and he felt himself flushing and not a little indignant at being lectured on his parental responsibilities by anyone other than Hermione.

"Mrs. _Jenkins_," he said angrily, "my son already told me all this, and from what I've heard this is all because of _Carbonade_," he let the name drip scathingly, "using our lawn as his personal business spot. It's upset Hugo but I'm sure if it's stopped he'd have no objection to—"

"I beg your pardon!" Mrs. Jenkins said shrilly, scandalized. "My Carbie does no such thing! How dare you!"

Ron ought to have resisted, but he just couldn't, and let out a big guffaw. "_Carbie_? You can't be serious."

This only served to further infuriate Mrs. Jenkins. "It's a perfectly fine name!" she shrieked. "And I'll thank you not to tell lies about my pets! How—_the nerve—_" Her outrage could only be manifested through spluttering. For Ron's part his ears were going red.

"You're accusing me of _lying_? Lady, the evidence is right there!" He waved wildly at a certain patch of lawn he'd just spotted. Mrs. Jenkins refused to look at it and glared at Ron, her face now getting a bit purple.

"You'd better keep your boy away from my Scotty!" she declared.

"No problem, Hugo's already got the good sense to stay away from him!" Ron snapped back.

Mrs. Jenkins turned on her heel and marched away with her nose in the air. Ron glared at her back and hoped fervently that she stepped in one of the spots Carbonade "didn't" leave in Ron's yard. "And keep your mutt away from my grass!" He bellowed at her retreating form.

* * *

When Hermione came home it was to complaints from both husband and child about various offensive Jenkins'. "Oh for heaven's sake, both of you," she sighed. "Must we battle the neighborhood?"

"It's not the neighborhood, it's Jenkins!" Hugo said firmly. "Both Jenkins. Jenkinses?"

"What kind of name is Carbonade?" Ron demanded. "That should tell you something about them right there!"

Despite her exasperation Hermione was struggling to hide a smile at the two of them. They were _so_ alike. "Boys, I don't know what to say. If it's just a matter of the lawn, can't we do a Banishing Spell?"

"Yeah," Hugo said venomously, still on this line of thought, "right to Scott's closet."

"No, her parlor," said Ron heatedly. "All over whatever pretentious rugs she's got. Let her get dung out of that."

"That's not the way to handle a disagreement!"

"Our lawn, Mum!"

"Hermione, she calls him _Carbie_!"

"Not another word!" Hermione said without inviting question. "It doesn't matter how much you care about the grass or how foolish the poor dog's name is, we musn't use magic to settle arguments with Muggles! Now please, let's just have a nice dinner."

Even the food seemed sour that night, despite Ron's best efforts to get his heart into it. Unsurprisingly it had been decided, quickly into their marriage, that perhaps Ron ought to handle the food for the better good of everyone involved. Cooking, when one is in a mood, is either thereapeutic or dangerous. Judging by the scowl twisting Ron's mouth, it was evident the former was laughable and Hermione was seriously considering running out for quick food instead.

She was also slightly, subtly amused by the whole thing. "It's not _really_ the dog's name that bothers you," she said to him while they cleaned dishes together.

Ron frowned. "Hermione, I've got a bad track record with animals who have got awful names." He ticked off on soapy fingers. "Pigwidgeon. Crookshanks. Aragog. Norbert."

"Norbert's not a bad name."

"We didn't name _our_ kid Norbert."

Hermione shook her head. "Oh, fess up. You just don't like Mrs. Jenkins." Ron mutely handed her a dish. "You can't blame her dog."

"I can and I will," Ron muttered.

Wiping her hands on a flowered towel, Hermione wasn't going to argue any further. Typically it was best to just let Ron sit and simmer until his temper wore smooth again. But Ron slapped the towel lightly down on the counter, evidently deciding to elaborate. "She accused me of lying," he said. "I hate it when someone does that—when it's not true anyway. She doesn't have any place telling me how to raise my kid."

"Of course not," Hermione said soothingly.

"She can forget about a Christmas card."

She smiled, kissed his cheek, and left him wrist-deep in bubbles as she went to sort through some work.

"And if Scotty comes here to trick or treat at Halloween," Ron called after her, "I'm giving him toothpaste."

"That's nice of you," she responded, and Ron was aghast to find that she was serious.

* * *

Later he poked his head into Hugo's room. "Night," he said.

"G'night," Hugo sighed. He seemed to fumble for a moment and then added, "I didn't mean to drag you into this, Dad."

Ron smiled a crooked, sheepish smile. "Well really, you didn't. I got mad all on my own." He went over and sat on Hugo's bed, a pleasing, riotous color mix of orange and black—among other things, Hugo had inherited from his father a helpless, star-crossed love for the tragic Chudley Cannons. "But your mum's right. You and I, we'll just have to ignore the Jenkins. Jenkinses."

"Is there an apostrophe in there somewhere?" Hugo wondered half-heartedly. "I'll try, Dad. But he just won't ignore _me_."

A grin snuck up on Ron before he realized it. "Then, next time he starts to bug you," he said, "Turn and look him right in the eye, and say: 'Is that your face, or does your butt have teeth?'"

Hugo cracked up. For ten year olds, who still thought 'I'm rubber and you're glue' was the greatest comeback ever, it was a brilliant insult as well as a devastating one. "That's great!" he sniggered. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Various brothers have told me at various points in time."

Still guffawing, Hugo fell back in bed. The annoyance had faded from his face, and he even let Ron make him a mummy—tuck the cover in tight around him so it was like he was really was one, all wrapped up in a sarcophagous. "Night," said Ron again, and turned off the light.

"What was Hugo laughing about?" Hermione said, looking up from a book to him in the living room. "And what are _you_ snickering about?"

"Nothing," Ron grinned, and she rolled her eyes. "You'll just lecture me," he added. Hermione laughed and he went to sit down beside her.

* * *

Inspired by a true childhood story...


End file.
